Endurance Part Four (ch. 3-5)

The three boats, the James Caird, Dudley Docker, and Stancomb Wills

After receiving the heartbreaking news, the men were in disbelief of their current situation. It appeared that some sort of a freak eastern current had sent them off course. The men were denied sleep for the second night in a row because of the conditions. Shackleton even began to doubt that they would survive the night. These conditions on top of the horrifying news created discontent among the crew members; Orde-Lees was the worst of all. "Several times when he [Orde-Lees] was rowing ahead of Kerr, he kept just enough out of rhythm so that when he leaned back after every stroke he smashed into Kerr's fingers behind him. Curses, threats- nothing had any effect on him." The author uses a euphemism in this section. When he says "curses" and "threats", this is most likely a much nicer way of putting the things that Kerr was saying to Orde-Lees. Orde-Lees' attitude was the extreme of what the men were feeling in those long hours at sea. The men were extremely parched, and thus starving because they were unable to swallow their food. This kind of thirst I just can not imagine relating to. I have felt very thirsty after a cross country practice on a hot day, but it just seems nominal compared to the several days the men spent at sea with hardly any fluids.

Elephant Island

The men survived the night, but Blackboro had lost his feet due to frostbite.As the sun rose that morning, the cliffs of Clarence and Elephant Island came into view. They were less than thirty miles away from Elephant Island, and Shackleton believed they could make it there by nightfall if the men were not in such bad shape. Many of the men were a sorry sight in that their faces showed the early signs of frostbite, and they were damp from head to toe. They sucked blood from the raw seal meat in order to help offset their thirst. By one thirty they were fifteen miles away from Elephant Island. They did not make as good of progress for the next couple of hours. The wind gave out on them, and some sort of a current was preventing them from making good forward progress. The decision was made to split up and try and make it to shore separately, but the fastest boat tug the slowest boat behind; otherwise, the slowest boat would not be able to make it ashore. They sailed all throughout the night and into the next morning. The ocean was relentless and unforgiving during this time. Miraculously, all three of the boats ended up on the same shore at the same time. Shackleton had told the frostbitten Blackboro that he would be the first ashore. This gesture was Shackleton's way of telling Blackboro that he is no longer considered a stowaway. As Lansing put their arrival: "For the first time in 497 days they were on land. Solid, unsinkable, immovable, blessed land."